David Jessop, ContributorTHE CARIBBEAN is having one of the best winter tourism seasons ever. Across the region, hotel rooms and flights are full. What is more, the construction of hotels, condominiums and time-shares are booming as regional and external investors recognise the future significance of the region as one of the world's major leisure destinations.
In short, tourism has become, as its industry representatives say ever more vocally, the most vital economic driver and component of the Caribbean economy.
If proof were needed, one only has to look at the most recent estimates produced by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). These show that in 2005, the broader tourism economy of the whole Caribbean is expected to provide 15.4 per cent of gross domestic product; 15.1 per cent of total employment; account for 19.7 per cent of total exports in the shape of foreign exchange earnings; and US$8.5 billion or 20.7 per cent of the total capital investment in the region. The industry has also become a major source of government revenues through a wide range of taxes and duties levied on everything from hotel guests to duties on imports for the industry. Moreover, the Caribbean tourism economy is forecast to grow at the annualised rate of 3.4 per cent per annum and generate a 2.8 per cent growth year on year in employment.
Even in oil and gas-rich Trinidad, tourism is expanding, as the WTTC note, at the rate of 4.4 per cent per annum, so that it now provides one in six jobs with the broader tourism economy contributing 13.8 per cent of GDP.
Despite this, the industry is one of the region's least understood. As a consequence, it is scarcely discussed at a policy level other than in the context of regulation, taxation or more recently, when the rising region-wide tide of crime threatens to engulf residents and visitors alike.
ODD PHENOMENON
This is an odd phenomenon that perhaps relates to the almost accidental manner in which tourism has emerged in many economies as well as to negative historic perceptions about servitude.
Notwithstanding, the industry and, more importantly, the demand that it creates for almost every form of economic activity means that it now permeates the depth and breadth of the whole Caribbean economy and has become a part of the fabric of Caribbean society.
To understand this better, it is necessary to recognise that hotels are simply the tip of an economic iceberg. They create employment, generate taxes for government and earn foreign exchange in their own right but they also require a truly huge penumbra of industries and services to enable them to function. That is to say, they require the input of everyone from the young physician who year round looks after the minor accidents of hotel guests through to the manufacturers of snack foods and furniture to the poultry farmer, entertainers and beach vendors whose livelihoods depend on visitor arrivals.
Tourism touches almost everyone. Even in nations such as Guyana where tourism is thought of as a minor activity relegated to the interior, the reality is that the numbers of returning nationals and their families make tourism of central importance. Which is to say nothing of the manner in which such regular visits reinforce the continuance of remittances.
Yet is seems that it is only in The Bahamas that there is any real political understanding of the importance of the industry. There, tourism issues have steadily grown in significance in the national debate. So much so that the tourism minister is considered to be the second or third most important figure in Cabinet and the Prime Minister rarely speaks without reference to issues affecting the sector.
In the rest of the Caribbean, there is still a long way to go. The Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA) and its public sector counterpart, the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) have recognised this but need to find new ways to educate the industry and the broader community about tourism's role.
RESEARCH URGENTLY NEEDED
At one level this means that the industry has a responsibility to undertake, rapidly, the detailed research that indicates just what tourism puts into each economy. That is to say, just how much income or expenditure each visitor generates indirectly in the domestic economy, whether for example it be in the form of employment taxes, power generation or the sale of vegetables or accounting services to hotels.
At another level, the industry needs to better make its case to Government with the support of those it employs. For too long, the industry has not represented itself well. Tourism must show it is not a new plantocracy. The face of tourism can no longer be that of the hotel owner.
This means that the industry needs to educate its workers, the broader business community and the public sector as to how and why tourism's success can create growth for all. Much more needs to be known about the business of tourism. This means, for instance, engaging hotel staff in better understanding that an over-
regulated, overtaxed industry is likely to make the Caribbean tourism product uncompetitive. It means also that hotel owners should develop profit share schemes with employees and providing the opportunity for personal development and training.
POTENTIAL POWER
For its part, Government and the civil service need to understand the industry's potential power as a partner in development rather than as an antagonist.
There also has to be a better understanding of the economic and social implications of all-inclusives, cruise ships, the trend towards condominiums and time share operations and the tourism related rush in some countries for real estate. Which is to say nothing of the myriad other issues from public health to security that affect the Caribbean industry's fortunes.
Some see the rise of tourism as inevitable and a process not to be forced. They argue that just as the tourism sector has grown in some nations out of the economic marginalisation in some nations of agriculture, so too will the tourism sector's power base grow. Or put another way, they believe that tourism will develop organically the recognition it requires over time.
This is an unaffordable luxury. What the Caribbean has can easily be lost. Tourism is one of the world's most competitive industries and there is no shortage of innovation or new product ideas among tourism competitors in the Far East or elsewhere. It is operating in real time.
In the past few months, one of the more startling developments has been the manner in which those outside of the region have recognised far more than those in the region just how important tourism has become. So much so that at the highest levels of one European Government, Caribbean tourism development has become a real focus of interest.
Tourism as an industry needs powerful advocates. Much is now up to the CHA, the CTO and the constituency that each represents to rapidly develop a process of regional education so that the industry is given the social, economic and political weight it merits in the domestic, regional and international arena.
David Jessop is the director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org. Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org
